Better Offers: Change of Station
by jenni3penny
Summary: Post 'Yankee White' AU. Second installment of the 'Better Offers' series. Early S1, Kibbs. "Locking the front door? You spoil me, Jethro. Soon I'll start expecting breakfast."


He'd already heard enough sounds come humming off her throat to know that the annoyed little growling wasn't necessarily a positive note. He figured she also probably hadn't even realized she was making it - it was breathy and huffed, unintentionally vocal. He ignored it at first, though. Let it echo down the stairs at his back as he continued counted measurements and marked them off. It was the second round of the sound that brought his shoulders up straighter, head half turning to catch the shushed shift of paper and a consistently battered tapping from her pencil.

"Don't take it out on the work, Kate." He murmured it out quietly but he knew she'd hear the softness he was purposefully using as he dropped the tape measure and pinched a look over the stretch of marks he'd made. He let the small chalk box clatter down along the board before wiping dusted grit against the front of his t-shirt.

"You'd rather I took it out on you?" The simple lift in her tone was familiar – it was the exact tone she'd started using in the first ten minutes he'd met her. Right about when she'd refused to deplane and then scolded him with the threat of proverbial frog testicles.

Five and half feet of sleek little sass-mouth and not a whisper of a backing down.

Two months later and he was still pretty sure he could wet dream that moment any given night of the week. Pretty sure he made a conscious effort to get that same look across her face as often as humanly possible too. As far as habits went, it wasn't necessarily a bad one. Just one that was often likely to get him a half-hearted shove and a mouthful of that same sass. Or her tongue in his mouth. Which, upon quiet consideration, was a win/win for him.

Gibbs silently stretched his palms into the braced ribs of the boat for a moment as he considered the stripped tone of voice she'd used, let his head tip down into how easily she'd countered him. He let his shoulders slack a little and stretch before he pushed himself around and leaned back into the skeletal flank of the hull, unconsciously enjoying the way one rib put pressure into his spine as he lifted a look up the basement stairs.

She'd nested half down them, turned sideways with her back flush to the wall and her socked feet dangling out the open rails. Her ankles were lazily crossed and one bare knee was raised up a little to keep the sketchpad in her lap angled into the slight turn of her wrist. He made a grunted noise into the fact she'd used his favorite hoodie as a seat cushion but the fact she was delightfully bare legged in his old NIS shirt sorta made any complaints seem mildly hypocritical.

"What?"

She ignored him, her head aside as she sifted her fingers through the little bag that was one step higher than she was. There was a petulant scowl marring up her round faced prettiness and he squinted into watching her huff off and shake her head. She'd tucked the HB pencil between her teeth and after a moment her shoulders sank, such a mournful look cresting her features as her body sank smaller on the step and she tossed the pencil despondently into the case. Gibbs watched her lay her palms against the sketchbook before she lifted her head in his direction, lips pouted as she shrugged at him.

"Forgot something." Another shrugging slaked over her as she let her body lean back into the wall, a bit of embarrassment blushing on her as she sleepily gave him an apologetic smile.

He grinned and leaned off the wood, angling between the slats so that he could scrap up the generic eraser out of the coffee can that he'd settled a few feet away. He palmed it as he turned, lifting it between two fingers. His teasing was blank faced as he kept still and stayed unmoving more than a yard away from her.

"Something like this?" The hand with the eraser went back and forth a little.

Kate's head came up, her fingers reflexively spreading full against paper as her eyes lifted the stretch of his hand. Her fingers stretched between the rails, wiggling playfully at him as she smiled appreciation and nodded at him. "Please?"

Gibbs let his jaw loosen, eyes relaxing as he jerked his head up with a subtle motion. "Come get it, Secret Service."

The color of her eyes swayed more copper as she squinted a semi glare at him, socked feet wiggling a little off the edge of the step as she leaned over her legs. "I'm comfortable."

"If you want it," his voice lowered farther, intentionally hushing as he stretched back into the boat frame again, "come and get it."

"That's entrapment, Gibbs." She was being snappish again, a little haughty.

It was annoying. Annoyingly adorable. Which, actually, just aggravated him more.

He wasn't the sort of guy who got drawn in and mushed up by 'cute'.

Except, sometimes, she was damn cute.

"Nope." He waved it back and forth again, trying to keep his tone neutral as she flicked him a dry glance and wiped her hair back from her cheek. "It's just an eraser."

"I said 'please'."

"Don't pout at me, sweetheart." He chuckled the words out, letting them sway taunting on the endearment as he angled his shoulders forward. "If you want it - "

"I want to finish this." The interruption wasn't pouting. It was, however, slipping impatient.

Good. She deserved to get a little riled. There was a limit to being unnecessarily attractive in his basement and she was way over the line.

"I'm not stopping you." He used the same unemotional tone he used at work, kept it so purposefully dry that she squinted annoyance into it before her shoulders dropped in resignation.

"Stubborn jackass."

He stepped quickly into her grudging shift, the empty hand loosely catching against one socked foot and tugging her still as his thumb drove rubbing into her arch. The other hand came up slowly into her interested watching, lifting away from her reaching as he gave her a sharpened glance. Kate played a pout at him, eyes thinned up as she dropped a flat palm into her lap. One larger palm curved her shin while the other hand lifted, wiping the eraser into her hand with a softly quiet wink.

"Take it upstairs and finish it." He ticked his fingers against the edge of the pad before sloping his palm down her leg, fingers wiping off her skin as he nodded. "I'll be done soon."

The smile that took over her features made her eyes widen up, the wood stain color holding his attention. "I can't finish it upstairs. What I'm looking at is in the basement."

He made a growling in his throat as his glance cocked over her, head lifting into trying to catch a peek along the paper before she jerked it higher into her chest. "Really?"

"You're really very serious when you're focused, ya know?" There was a giddy sweetness to how quietly she mocked at him, her fingers lifting to wipe just above his nose. "Little line comes right - "

"Think you're funny?" The sudden lift of his head had her finger wiping against his nose and he caught the way his quick movement had her smiling wider as he turned tighter into the touching instead of away from it.

"I think you think I'm funny." She corrected with that same warm humming that he'd gotten sorta used to leaning into. Especially when her fingers found the stretch of his temple and started circles that made his head unconsciously lean closer to her palm.

"I think you're a wise ass." He rumbled toward the curl of her hand, eyes shut as she worked her thumb against his forehead while her fingertips wiped on his hairline.

He realized how damn easily she'd gotten everything she wanted.

The fact her fingers were also easily loosening the tension behind his eyes made up for it.

"And you like it."

"Damn right." He nodded his head up and away from her fingertips, lifting his jaw toward the door before waving at it. "Go on. Get some sleep."

"Don't stay down here all night, huh?" She was curling the drawing up into her chest as she stretched her back straighter and dropped the eraser into the bag. "By two?"

"Deal."

* * *

He envied how easily she slept in his bed as he looked over her, tugging the shirt over his head and feeling gritted dust slake his forearms as he dumped it to the floor. Envy and jealousy, maybe, because he barely slept at all when he was in it. Not the real and deep sort of restful sleep she was obviously enjoying. And while he may have wanted having her in it make sleep a more likely possibility, it was doubtful when he was still so tensely wired.

"You're late." And her voice was adorably muzzy with sleep.

"But I locked the door." he offered on a dry murmur.

"Locking the front door?" He knew she meant to tease but her voice just mumbled with more sleep than she probably realized. "You spoil me, Jethro. Soon I'll start expecting breakfast."

He pinched into her hip lightly, smiling into the way it just made her back her ass directly into his groin and wiggle tighter into the front of him. "I've made breakfast for you, Katie."

"That is true." She was already nearly completely back into sleep, her hair a soft heat he could bury his face into for drowning purposes. "Sorry."

Unfair. It was cosmically unfair that she was still sweet enough to be able to sleep so well in a bed that had heard too many choked back mid-nightmares and unrelenting silences.

"Don't tell me you're sorry." he breathed the words into her hair and leveled the field in the quickest and most accessible way he could. He used his hands.

He dragged the fabric of his own shirt up onto her hip and skidded his palm down under the back of her panties, stroking against her ass appreciatively before he curved against her stomach and ground her tightly back into his crotch. The weak little sound that lathed off her throat made his smile wipe through dark hair as he palmed her still and kept his hand flat, fingers intentionally tipped downward to the pressing of her thighs. The other hand tugged lightly at her hair, lifting her head into the way he was pressing his arm forward. The smile slacked off as he groaned a sudden full body exhaustion into her shoulder, her head a solid weight into the bunched tightness of his arm.

He was completely tentative in the way he let the side of his head relax into hers.

At least until her hand lifted to press flat and still along his sweat chilled cheek.

She kept her palm resiliently flat to the side of his face and he felt her body relax into him and the mattress. "Thank you."

"For locking the door." It wasn't a question. It was a half sardonic chuckle along the back of her ear.

"Yes."

* * *

He was looking at her like he was completely prepared to scold her - as though she was a misbehaving child and he was seriously concerned about her life choices. "Are you saying a farewell, Caitlin?"

Her father had looked at her like that a few times. Usually far far after curfew. And generally when she'd still been a little too inebriated to really understand any salient points he'd been trying to make.

"Why would you think that?" She just shrugged, same way as she usually had with her dad.

Same way she had when she'd told her already perpetually disappointed mother, over a Sunday-after-church Bloody Mary, that she'd applied to the Secret Service.

Just before she'd been dryly reminded that suicide (like leaning into a death trajectory that was meant for someone else) was _the_ _unforgivable sin, Caitlin._

Ducky waved up from where he'd been seated at his desk, his head turned into studying the bag she'd carried toward him. "Because you have a large supply of loose leaf tea in your hand."

Kate gave him a tipped smile as he took the bag, lifting it toward his face so that he could inhale deeply and make a slightly humphed noise in his throat. "Maybe I'm just replacing - "

"Assam?" He questioned quietly to the side, eyes nearly shut as he took down more of the scent.

"Thought you'd enjoy it." She agreed with a smiling softness as his eyes lifted toward hers.

"I also just received a request directly from the Director's office to have your medical clearance transferred to Moscow." An appreciative look passed over his features as he set the tea aside to his desk, slowly turning the stool so that he could draw the lift of his eyes completely up the way she'd wrapped her arms around herself. "The very office that - "

"I won't be staying there long." Kate murmured quietly. "Don't read too much into it."

"Transfer by the end of business hours?" The medical examiner stretched up from the chair, brow tucked together thoughtfully as he leaned toward her with an aiming hand. "It was a very strongly worded directive. Meant to hasten - "

"I still need to see Abby before I leave." She kept her interruption gentle, tipping closer into the way he was studying her face with an obvious affection.

"And Jethro?" The affection dropped off quickly, his eyes going darker and pinning on her as his jaw lifted into meeting her glance. "Does he know?"

The prolific use of his name seemed so easily comfortable to the other man.

Like he had a gilded permission slip to use it whenever he liked.

"He's not back yet."

Ducky's face hardened back toward that imminent scolding, his head motioning just marginally back and forth as he pointed sharply at her and dropped his voice to a hush. "Don't you just leave. Not without telling him."

"He'd understand." She'd been thinking it before saying it.

Gibbs _would_ understand. He'd know exactly why she'd done it.

Because the need to say a 'goodbye' would imply the act of actively missing someone.

And it didn't seem like either of them knew yet if it was okay to miss the other.

"Logically, yes, he would." That fatherly tone sounded awfully familiar, the warmth of fondness combined with an aged sturdiness. "Defy logic, Caitlin. He deserves - "

"I'll tell him, Ducky. Relax." She nodded strongly into the reassurance, catching against the older man's scrub shirt so that she could pull tightly into the side of him.

"And if I like this particular blend?" He was quite obviously (and sadly?) avoiding the fact that she was trying to saying any sort of farewell, his hand waving back toward the desk. "The bag is unmarked."

Kate smiled into laying a kiss against his cheek, regardless of his deflection. "I'll get you more when I get back."

* * *

That admittedly sexy little line of uninterrupted concentration had drawn down between his eyes again. And she couldn't help but smile into the realization that it actually made her straighten up a little, her spine jamming up, her hand unconsciously pressing her stomach. It didn't matter when it happened. Watching him ignore the world because he was so intently focused on one particular facet of it, whether the case he was on or just the way he stroked intentionally slow fingers along her impatience – it made her undeniably aware of all of him.

"Five minutes?" She made it sound like a request because she was half prepared to duck out when he told her he just didn't have time.

"Don't have 'em." Predictable, Jethro. Attractively so.

His head was downwardly turned as he jacked open the drawer to his right, the full build of him stacked up high and strong on his side of the desk. He was very clearly in full stalking mode, but certainly not the type he'd used on her a couple times. This was angrier, far more judicious and far less patient. She could feel DiNozzo's hushed and patient waiting sidle up along her left and she unintentionally side stepped away from it.

She didn't want to do this in front of Tony. She wasn't all together sure she wanted to do this at all.

Ducky had been right, though (as she was sure Ducky usually was).

He deserved it. "Gibbs, just a couple minutes."

"And I don't have them. I have a crime scene." He made the act of holstering his weapon look like no more than the lazy buttoning of his shirt, natural and practiced. "Kate, I gotta go."

"I'm saying," she exhaled it as she met his eyes, lifting her head away from watching him slack his jacket back into place, "so do I."

"What?"

She knew, just by the furious (and delicious) flexing in his jaw that he didn't really need any more of an explanation. He knew exactly what she meant as she let her hands lead to dropping against his desk, fingers arching into it and pressing for a kind of balance against his scrutiny. For being so otherwise rushed, his body had gone awfully still in its stalling.

"Boss, I think she means -"

"I get that, DiNozzo." He didn't turn away from her eyes as his voice struck out hard and clamped over the desk. "Truck. Now."

"Getting rid of me?" Tony's voice went surprisingly soft as he leaned forward, stretching his fingers toward the other man's to take the keys. Kate caught the sympathetic and oddly fond look he briefly shot at her before looking back up. The younger man just dipped a quick nod into the way Gibbs was glaring him down, jaw wired tight and eyes slimmed to a gray blue.

"Yeah, Boss." Tony jacked his bag high on his shoulder, his emptied hand squeezing up against the back of her arm before he leaned into stepping backwards. "See ya soon, Todd."

The stripped down honesty of his voice was such a steep drop from his usually higher pitched playfulness and she let her head turn into the way he just waved the keys at her as he backed away.

She lifted her fingers from the desk, letting them sway over it while she held the younger man's friendly glance. "Watch out for this one."

"Will do, Katie-Kate." He nodded with a jangle of the keys before turning on the both of them, his voice tripping right back up into that annoying jabbing.

"Where?" The driven gravel in his voice drew her head back, the fingers that were still pressed to his desk rubbing into it as she fidgeted into his watching.

"Europe." Kate murmured quietly, noting how subtly he watched her mouth as she spoke rather than listening to the dropped whisper of her tone.

He tipped his head in a slight surprise, accepting the margin of honesty. "How long?"

"I have no idea."

She watched the way he pressed from behind his desk slowly, hands sure and completely smooth in the way he fixed his badge to his belt before grabbing for his overcoat. Kate kept still, eyes following the smooth shift of him as he stepped into her side and leaned the full strength prettiness of his blue eyes over her. And, Christ, were they pretty.

"With who?" He murmured over her shoulder, his glance sliding down the front of her in a fashion that said he was taking the precious little time he had to memorize as much of a visual as possible.

"Whom."

His jaw flicked a little tighter as his head turned tighter toward her. "Caitlin."

"Yates and Snyder." Her voice clipped back into the way he'd shifted behind her, catching against his wrist tightly as he palmed along her hip to spin her into following his resumed movement.

"You know what I mean." He'd let her keep his wrist wrapped up in her fingers, overcoat laid over the other arm as he drew her following toward the elevator.

"And you know I'm not telling you." Kate let his arm loose, double timing a couple steps to lean into the long stretch of his upper arm. "Saurel. Repeat it."

"Saurel." He huffed off, glance turning aside as he curved toward the elevator button, "Kate - "

"Don't forget it." She just shook her head into the quieted tone she was intentionally using before she exhaled, her fingers stretching out to tweak against his coat. "I really love this coat on you. It's so - "

"We're not doing this." He grit forward, leaning closer to her as the elevator doors banked open beside him. "Tell me."

"Don't forget that name, Gunny."

She let him step into the elevator but stayed motionless, watching the swing of his body as he turned and slacked back into the wall of the car. She took a sliver of a moment to enjoy just how enticingly solid he looked in his leaning, the entire stretch of him slanted back so that his head and shoulders were pressing his frustration to the wall. A pinched look of confusion darkened his face as he studied her stillness, his head just barely moving back and forth in a silent realization. A swift jerk of his jaw preceded the fluid way he pressed his body off the back wall and grabbed onto her wrist, shoulder blocking the rebounding door as he tugged her into the elevator with him and then let it go closed.

"Saurel? Your cover?" He ignored the shied way she lifted her arm, tightened his fingers around how delicately small her wrist felt even when it was flexed.

Kate glared into how easily he'd kept her pried close even when she'd tried so ridiculously hard to just let him go. "Target."

There was a beat of nodded comprehension before he stretched his fingers out. His fingertips went rubbing into the soft skin on the inside of her wrist before he nodded his face into the back of her hand. She watched him with interest, fingers stretching into enjoying the wipe of his lips against the back of her hand before he loosened up and stepped back. His jaw lifted in her direction, a subdued smile half crowding his lips as he blindly flicked the emergency stop and doused them into darkness.

"This came down faster than I thought it would." He admitted into the way she was still quietly watching him, his voice unnecessarily dropped low and slow.

"You're tellin' me." She watched him sling the coat on before he leaned farther forward into her, his hand catching against the bottom hem of her shirt and pulling. "You know what a timetable looks like when all hell breaks loose."

"Hey." His fingers jerked her tightly forward as his shoulders crowded on her, the dip of his head bringing his mouth close enough to hers that she couldn't completely ignore the movement of his lips like she usually tried to do while working. "You show 'em what hell looks like, Katie."

Such a good Marine, with his unequivocal orders and his unending faith in them.

Such an absolutely perfect mouth when he was being so confidently honest and simply sweet.

Such an impossible man to ignore.

So she leaned a kiss on him so abruptly that he made a pleasantly surprised noise into her lips, his hands using the rush of her as an excuse to tug tighter. Her fingers went just as digging on him, the stroke of his tongue along her teeth enough of a distraction that she didn't even realize how easily he'd closed around her. It was comfortable, though. Too easily comfortable than it should have been in a darkened elevator when, realistically, she shouldn't have even been in the building. She should have already been on a plane.

But his hands were up along the sides of her head and he'd managed to aim her so tightly flush into the front of him that she could feel how tightly flexed up and agitated he suddenly was. He was hesitantly wiping her hair back with one hand as he thumbed along her bottom lip and pressed her head a fraction back to keep from kissing her more with the other.

"I'm not liking this." he murmured as his head went back and forth.

"The kissing?" She smiled involuntarily into the wry glare he gave her before she pressed into his chest. "Go solve your case. It's what you're best at."

"Thought I'd have more time for you." The admission was quietly and a bit shyly made, the nearest to a regret she'd probably ever get out of him. "With you. Having you."

"See what thinking gets you, Gibbs?" She fidgeted her fingers down the front of his jacket, drawing a long breath of his closeness and the smell of him while she shook her head unconsciously.

"Got you here."

"Yeah, it did." She lifted a rebounding smirk into the smile that she'd heard in his tone, watched it slim his eyes darker as she nudged into his chest. "Get outta here. I know your brain's already half out the door."

He ducked his head aside and down on a breathy laugh, "It's not."

"Don't lie to me." She shook off with a slightly bemused smile, catching the half shrug he made at her as she leaned across his arm and flicked the switch, bringing elevator back to life.

The catch of his arm around her waist was a surprise, but a gentled one. Especially when he angled his mouth along the side of her head and kept her curled up his side. "You will make every required check-in."

"I will." She rubbed her fingers on his coat sleeve, letting her cheek lay along the high shoulder seam as her eyes closed. "First is in forty eight hours."

"Trust your gut." He cinched her tighter with the flexed curl of his arm, palm spread fully into the lower curve of her spine.

"I will." Kate repeated into smiling against fabric.

"Be specific when you lie. Keep it as close to the truth as - "

"Gibbs." Her jaw angled up onto his shoulder and she heard the groaned noise he let off his throat as she kissed just in front of his ear and pressed the center of his chest. "Stop. It's just an observation op, remember?"

"I got stabbed once on an observation op, Kate." The only reason he released on the way she pulled away was that it was timed to the jerked ending of the short ride to the lobby.

Her head slanted back in his direction as her palm lifted into the opening door, voice souring sarcastic as she held it for him. "Thank you."

"I want you - "

"I've got this, Gunny." She nodded slowly, ignoring the flinching look he gave her, just as she ignored the two vaguely familiar agents who were waiting for the elevator to clear. "And this is your floor."

His jaw flicked a couple times, obviously tensing as he bit his teeth together against arguing. "I'll see you soon."

She was stunned still by the sharp kiss he dropped against her mouth before he leaned casually out the door and kept walking past the other men. No glance back. No hesitation. All grown man swagger in a beautifully tailored coat.

Kate smirked as she watched the long legged movement of him. "Yes, you will."

She didn't expect him to turn back – not at all - but he did. And, to his credit, he did keep moving silently backwards.

But he was still bright eyed watching her as the other agents moved into the elevator and allowed the doors to close.

* * *

"Kate left, didn't she?"

She'd been quietly pouting behind his desk for nearly half an hour, leaned onto his cabinet and fiddling with the Rubik's Cube from his bottom drawer. He'd jumbled it all up and silently handed it back to her within the first five minutes of her over-the-shoulder gargoyle impression. But the innocent sadness in her tone when she'd finally spoken had made his fingertips hesitate against the keys and he'd let his hands still.

"What makes you think that?" Tony finally asked to the side, letting the report he'd been working on sit unfinished in front of him. It was mocking him silently, staring back with too many open spaces.

"Phone goes straight to voicemail." Abby's voice always seemed to trend younger when she was verbally realizing a truth she didn't necessarily want to admit to having known all along. "And she canceled on me for tomorrow. Said she'd have to work."

He sent his body slowly back into the chair, using the toe of his shoe against the desk corner to angle himself back into her space. "She couldn't necessarily tell us anything, Abs."

"I know." The shrugging she made led her a little farther forward and he quirked a half smile sideways when she set her forearm into his shoulder, the cube mostly finished in her thin and quick fingers. "I don't like this. I don't like not knowing where she's going or where she's gonna end up. She could be gone for months. She shoulda just taken the first job. At least then Gibbs'd have her back."

"You're not the only one who's got some issues with this situation." He smirked gently into the way she handed the finished puzzle into his hands, his glance aiming toward his boss' desk as he blindly started turning blocks again at random intervals. "And if she'd taken the first job, her back is all he woulda had. You know Gibbs, he probably never woulda crossed that line."

A long sigh came off her, echoed over his shoulder as she reached down with an open palm and waited for him to mix the colors again. "He's gonna be a Grumpy McGibbs."

Tony just snorted in the direction of the empty desk as he handed it back to her, "You haven't spent all day with him. He already is."

* * *

He'd been distracted – by both the case and by her sudden absence. That's how he explained to himself that he hadn't noticed it earlier. Because it wasn't until nearly three in the morning that he noticed the glint of light hitting metal on the pegboard behind his desk.

"Guess she couldn't necessarily take it with her, could she?" Tony's voice was surprisingly and calmly supportive from across their desks.

Gibbs just shrugged as he slacked his chair back and stared at where she'd pinned a silver chain beside one of his photos, the crucifix small and otherwise unobtrusive. Still, so warmly familiar. "Go home."

"I'm good, Boss." DiNozzo tossed off, his muzzled voice giving away how tired he was despite his argument otherwise. "I'll get us some coffee. We can go back over - "

"Go home, Tony." he turned the wearily grated words toward the younger man. "Fresh eyes in the morning."

"You sure?"

He just dropped his head back against the chair, letting his eyes burn closed on him as he forced his exhalation relaxed rather than rough. "I'm sure."

"Night, Boss."

He didn't answer in kind because he knew he wouldn't really sleep.

Just lifted his hand blindly as he listened to the other man's shifting.

* * *

"Are you afraid of flying?" She tipped her head forward, let her glance search over the other woman with an intentionally sympathetic lean, focused on the way the other agent was chewing into her bottom lip and studiously avoiding the window at her right.

"It's not the flying that's a problem."

Kate involuntarily half smirked into the quick and twitchy response Yates gave her. "Then what exactly is the problem?"

"The air is the problem." Cassie explained, her head driving back into the small and generic pillow one of the attendants had given her.

She shifted lower in the seat as she watched Yates lower her shoulders and exhaled. "You mean in the cabin?"

"I mean the thousands of miles of it under us and nothing but." The darker woman flung off as her fingers waved up between them, her head still tipped back and her eyes slid shut.

"Do you wanna switch seats?"

"I'm fine." The other agent was purposefully breathing slowly and shallowly. "The seat is fine. I made it from DC to New York without either of you noticing."

"Sure, in an aisle seat." She lowered her voice into a friendly softness. "I'm surprised, actually. A fear of flying is the last thing I'd expect out of you."

"I'll switch with you." Snyder's voice jaunted warmly up over them, both women jolting into how quickly he'd dumped into the backs of their seats and towered over their shoulders.

"Jesus." Cassie breathed out as she shook her head, angling him a darkened glance. "What is this? The school bus? I'm fine. This seat is fine. The plane is fine."

"Bit small actually." He shrugged into letting his arms relax along the backs of their seats before looking out over the plane's cabin. "Crampy."

"It really is." Kate agreed quietly as she tugged up a novel that had been sitting on her bedside table, untouched, for months.

"You would be the one to think so, wouldn't you? Less luxurious than you're used to." He taunted over her shoulder, his lips lighting up on a smirk when she just turned a glare back at him. "You should try things back here with Lenny the Lummox. He's bloody huge."

"Did he bring the bunnies too, George?" Kate murmured back on a playful glare.

"I think they may actually be in the carry on he's insisting on clutching for dear life." The other agent thumbed back behind him, unconcerned that he could probably be heard by the man he was referring to. "Do _you_ wanna switch?"

"You will not move from that seat." Cassie's hand caught into her shirt sleeve so fast that she coughed out a laugh and looked over the other woman's serious face. "If I have to sit next to him for the next nine hours, I'll smother him with my teeny tiny little pillow."

"Cass - "

"Do you think I won't?" Yates asked with a quiet intensity that had the other woman near laughter.

Kate slicked her tongue along her lips and shrugged her head back, letting it nudge along his leaning arm. "Sorry, Steinbeck. My hands are tied."

"Were that actually the case," he muttered grumpily over her, "I'm afraid I'd have a very unfortunate debriefing with an enraged bear of a former Marine."

Her head lifted sharply, angling aside but not turning toward the smile she'd heard in his voice.

"Shutting my mouth and sitting back down directly." The clipped and apologetic tone he was using soothed her still and she felt her seat jack back as he stretched off it.

"Thank you." Kate responded slowly, turning her head into the widened smirk Cassie was leaning her way while still tugged into her shirt. "What?"

"Nothing." Cassie grinned wider and shook her head forward as her fingers loosened up from fabric and lifted defensively between them. "Nothing at all."

* * *

"These are wonderful." Mallard's voice was full of surprised awe as he flipped through the pages of the book he'd been handed. They'd traded food for the sketchpad in silence as Gibbs had cleared his dining table, just as Ducky had entered the house without a word of warning or request. Just shown up with a bag that smelled good enough to make the younger man's stomach gnaw into growling. He hadn't realized how hungry he was until food had been nearly shoved in his face.

"The lines could be stronger but the shading is - "

"More than one in there." Gibbs murmured as he set the bag from the nearest take out joint to the table, tipping a glance into it to search out what the medical examiner had brought.

"These are not yours." The slightly derogatory note to the older man's voice made him snort as he started lifting containers from the bag and setting them out. "They..."

He finally lifted his head into the beats of silence, shrugging as he lifted a crisp waxed bag of extra egg rolls and sniffed at it. "What?"

"Are these Caitlin's?" Such a warmth to her name, a fully affectionate appreciation. Maybe he wasn't the only man she'd managed to make trip into a sort of warm lust with her, because Ducky was looking legitimately smitten.

Gibbs grinned into a proud nodding as he skiffed a glance over the papers and back down into the bag, avoiding the other man's humored laugh as he dumped the egg rolls aside.

"Jethro, I adore that girl." He was shaking his head back and forth."You're lucky I'm not twenty years younger."

"She's not a girl, Duck." He'd admit that she was a little younger than what usually caught him up and stopped him still, but she was certainly more 'woman' than 'girl'. The devious and delightfully wicked mouth on her could prove it. "And you're right, I am. She likes you. Lets you ramble."

Ducky was lifting one particular drawing up between them, glancing between it and the way Gibbs was emptying the carry out bag onto the low dining table. "She left them here?"

It had to be the one of him in the basement. Because that was the only one of him she'd left in the house and the other man seemed to be doing a studious back and forth comparison. And while it wasn't necessarily finished, even he'd caught himself smiling into how much accurate attention she'd detailed into his shoulders to his jaw to the concentrated turn of his head.

"Well, I didn't steal 'em." He waved an implied invitation toward the table before heading into the kitchen, dumping the paper bag into the garbage before grabbing a couple beers from the fridge. Ducky wouldn't drink it, he knew that. But he'd offer anyhow. And then he wouldn't have to get up for a second one once it was refused.

The book was shut and left gently to his living room coffee table, reverence in the older man's hands before he turned fully into the kitchen and toward the table. "What else has she left here?"

The inviting smell of her every-goddamn-where. He could still smell her in particular spaces, breathe in the sharp lavender scent. It cloyed the kitchen and his bed sheets were soaked in the sweet tanged smell of her. And the bathroom absolutely perfectly reeked of her lotion – even if the last time he'd seen her use it was in his bedroom. His boat smelled like him and her and the mingling had him swallowing down how subtly welcoming the scent of her was. Especially when he had her blushing and flushed hot against it. And when she cradled his mouth along her throat just so she could lean back and focus on how easily he could work his fingers between her legs before leaning farther down?

Christ, sex smelled good on her. It always managed to cloud him up.

Tasted even better. Especially when he'd spent more time teasing her than touching her.

Maybe she was that good and proper Catholic lady most hours of the day. Just meant making her moan while he slicked his fingers inside her and whispered wonder over how wet she was was all the more his privacy to keep. So was how assuredly her hand tended to appreciate the shortly trimmed hair at the back of his head when she tucked his mouth closer to her clit and demanded he continue doing exactly _that, right there_ with his tongue. He'd been enjoying making sure that moment of the day was his to own - and she hadn't yet seemed all that interested in going anywhere else to find it.

"Jethro?" Ducky was half smirking across the table. "What else?"

"Few things." Keys to her apartment, just in case. A note with her sister's phone number. A pair of earrings she'd left on his kitchen table one night. "Why are you here?"

"Dinner." The older man replied quickly as he finally sat, sniffing into the take out container he'd opened. "I don't like not knowing what she's walking into."

"Y'think I do?" Gibbs snorted it off, reaching for one of the other mystery options as he let his body sink into his own chair, a groan coming off the way he stretched his shoulders back. "It's her job, Duck. She's doing her job."

"You - "

"I trust her to do her damn job, Ducky." He intentionally didn't meet the other man's eyes, reaching into the way Mallard handed over a pair of chopsticks. "I have to."

"You are not accustomed to being the one left behind, Jethro." The older man's voice had taken a drop in volume and he knew it was intentional, it was a purposeful hush meant to keep the accusation more amiable. Didn't necessarily make it any easier to admit to. Didn't make it any easier to swallow when his throat was already inexplicably raw. "You're also unaccustomed to being in the dark when it comes to - "

"Don't." He jabbed his chopsticks in the older man's direction, voice caged quiet. "This isn't a discussion."

Ducky just grinned, his smile proof that he was beyond the supposedly (as DiNozzo put it) 'steely' intimidation powers of Leroy Jethro Gibbs. "What else has she left here, Jethro?"

"Enough." He obviously wasn't getting out of discussing it – knew that for a fact. But, if he were to be honest, Ducky was really the only one he'd grudgingly share it with at this point anyhow.

"Enough for a night? For a weekend? For - "

"This isn't a discussion either." Gibbs finally shook off a mildly bemused smile, dropping his chopsticks into the container so that he could lift his beer and aim toward the medical examiner. "You're worse than Abby."

"Allow me one question." Ducky had seemed to forget the actualy eating aspect of dinner, his attention all tensed up in his shoulders as he leaned forward over the table with a nodding. "One? Assuage a gentleman's curiosity."

Gibbs just grinned a silent laugh to the side. "Shoot."

"How many pairs of shoes has she left here?"

He still wasn't matching the other man's glance but the smile tweaked a little higher on one side of his mouth as he considered it. "Two."

"Excellent."

Was it? Awfully fast - that's what it really was.

But then, even he'd admit that he still had a pretty quick reaction time to a lot of things. A woman he'd decided he wanted was usually pretty high on that list. Never really had a problem getting them, either. It was the keeping that never seemed to pan out the way he'd intended. Sorta like offering her a job that would keep her right beside him and having her turn it down in lieu of a career change that'd make her availability to him a question of what country she was even in. Keeping a woman he cared about close had obviously become an impossibility since Shannon. Maybe now a sorta self fulfilling impossibility, sure, but the fact that she was suddenly empty from his life fit the proverbial pattern pretty damn well.

"Duck, things are gonna play out the way they play out – not necessarily the way you want them to. Keep in mind who you're talking to, huh?"

"The real question is," Ducky's voice warmed patient, "how would you like them to play out?"

The real question was decidedly more than just one question. It was a lot of questions. And with her just suddenly gone, he had no real recourse for answers. Not that he would have pushed her for any yet anyhow. Didn't necessarily want them yet. He liked learning her this way – by just spending time beside, aside, inside her. It gave him time to anticipate answers. Gave him the knowledge he needed to know her responses before they were made. Surveilling her gave him answers without him really needing to ask the questions in the first place. Which was a lot less embarrassing for him, _thank you very much._ Also meant he was more likely to know exactly when to duck should she take a swing for his head.

He smirked silently into the realization that the difference between his ex-wives and Ms Caitlin Todd was that she was less likely to wield sporting equipment and far more likely to put a cheap shot in his knee with the revolver she kept strapped to her headboard.

That simple and guileless directness... that was Shannon all over and again.

Maybe a little more volatile but, shit, he was too old to start avoiding trouble now.

"I'd like to know where the hell she is right now." he finally admitted quietly, lifting the bottle and taking down a long swallow to avoid the admittance of anything else Ducky might find useful in his impromptu fishing expedition.

"I meant more long term." The older man smiled slowly before finally taking a bite of his food and chewing in Gibbs' direction, his eyes bright in humor.

"Long term thinking leads to habitual disappointment." Gibbs responded blankly before digging into his own container and chewing back just as smugly.

He knew the quiet and glaring response the other man gave him wasn't going to last long, so he shoveled as much rice as he could into his mouth before the interrogation could resume.

"What kind of shoes?"

He gulped the swallow down hard, reaching for his beer as he shook his head. "What?"

"What sort of shoes did she leave?" Ducky asked as he waved his chopsticks interestedly between them.

"Heels and her running shoes." His head jagged sideways as he swallowed, suddenly remembering the other pair. "And heels."

The older man quirked him an accusatory glance. "You said two."

"I forgot the strappy ones in the bedroom. She..." he couldn't meet his friend's eyes, "she's tricky. That little - "

"You obviously didn't make it seem as though leaving them was a problem."

Was it? A _problem_? Not really. Except for the fact that she hadn't just put them in the damn closet like he'd told her to the morning of her leaving. The surprised little smile she'd shot in his direction as he'd said it had made up for the fact that they'd still been on the carpet when he'd finally made it home. Shoe racks and stow zones were created for a reason, though – mainly so he didn't trip over her heels when he'd been aimed for the head in the middle of the night.

"It's not." Hadn't brought himself to put them away, though. Not yet. And, really, they were small in comparison to his own. Didn't take up all that much space. And now that he knew they were there he'd been unconsciously avoiding them.

"Excellent." He realized Ducky was staring at him with such brightened up eyes that he dryly laughed into the other man's murmur before leaning back over his food and ignoring what he could.

God knew how long this was gonna last...

He was just gonna focus on the food until it was over.

* * *

"Got anything for me, Nance?" He let the long length of his body drop into the chair beside the young woman, keeping the smile on his face innocently made as he palmed a disposable coffee cup onto his knee.

"I have a teething kiddo at home and got about two hours rack time last night, Gibbs." The blonde tapped the headset just back off her ear so that she was half listening as her eyes sank over the cup he was holding. "So, yeah, I have the caffeine jitters and you have a death wish."

She did look extraordinarily tired – but he wasn't dumb enough to mention it.

She'd been a notoriously take-no-shit-nor-prisoners sorta gal ever since she'd left the Marines and joined the agency. Probably exactly why he liked her as much as he did.

"That's why it's decaf." He grinned as he lifted it slowly toward her, nudging it up closer when, at first, she didn't take it."Try bourbon."

"While on duty?" The tech's fingers slowly wrapped on the cup and she leaned into it to take a slow smell off the steam. "Director'd probably frown on that."

He just grinned wider and let off a chuckle as he studied the tired darkness that shallowed under blue eyes. "I meant on her gums. Rub a little bourbon on her gums. Numbs 'em up."

It'd worked on Kelly - and more than once. First time he'd gotten caught at it Shannon had pretended to pitch a fit, just before rolling her eyes and waving away the smart-assed grin he'd given her when the girl had quieted her fussing.

Nancy studied him quizzically a moment, lifting the cup in bemusement. "Decaf?"

"Yup." Gibbs let his long body slack back away from her, casting a glance out over MTAC's empty gallery as he relaxed in the chair. "So what have you heard?"

"Just chatter. Mostly their movements." She was sipping the coffee slowly, her other hand waving toward her work station as she stretched her shoulders out in an effort to loosen them up."I'm following three teams at once, Gunny. I can't stay on her my entire shift."

His head jacked back tightly in her direction, most of his humor sheering off as he studied the way she turned a knowing look back to him. He lifted his head into the way she just stared back, unafraid of the darkened way he was watching her. After a beat he exhaled into a smirked shake of the head.

"Nancy - "

"Did I mention only two hours of sleep?" She interrupted tightly, the cup lifted between them as a sort of guarding. Or a possible weapon.

Gibbs let his shoulders loosely lean forward, head angling closer. "How long are you on?"

"Another forty long ass minutes." She shunted back, her body laxing lower in the desk chair. "Means McClaren is gonna catch their first check in."

"McClaren? No. Nancy - "

"Gibbs, no." Her voice was apologetic but firm as she slacked harder back in the chair and turned a look at him that went pleading. "Teething baby, remember?"

"I want you, Nance. It's only two hours." He flexed the smile he'd first given her, watched the way she glared into how easily he'd managed to make it look sweet. "I'll get you tomorrow off. I promise. Mom and daughter day."

"And I go home as soon as Echo logs their first phone home." She pointed at him with the empty hand.

"Deal." He was already launching up from the chair, the length of him stretching toward the stairs that led to one of the exits. "DiNozzo's gonna bring you some food. I'll be back in a couple hours."

A throttled noise rang off her as she interrupted a deep swallow of coffee. "Tony hits on me. Send somebody else."

"It's a compliment." He shrugged as he stalled half up the stairs, giving her another grin of amusement. "You should appreciate it."

"I'm married, Gibbs."

A wincing nod came off him as he turned back toward the door and doubled his steps up. "I'll send Abby."

* * *

Hours later and he'd bypassed the bullpen and gone straight to Forensics empty handed, the surprisingly comforting sound of Kate's voice still racketing around in his head. Didn't even hesitate to make the trip into Abby's home turf sans caffeine either. He'd entice her with a reward once she'd gotten him what he wanted. And he knew for a fact that once she figured out why he wanted the information (because she would, no doubt) she'd be more than just an unwitting accomplice. She was his brilliant little mastermind, damn dangerous as to what she could do too. This was a challenge she'd double jump into. Firstly, because she'd want the information too. Secondly, because it was just left enough of right to get her rebellion fired up.

The sliding doors to the lab seemed a little laggy and he side turned into how slowly they opened for him. "Any way to backtrack a call coming into MTAC without anyone in MTAC knowing?"

Her head didn't lift from the way she was bent over a battered up Berretta. "We're speaking in a hypothetical here, right?"

"Sure. Yeah. Purely hypothetical." Gibbs stepped to the opposite side of the table, watching Abby straighten up and nudge the safety glass up into her pigtails.

"Then hypothetically? No. Not from here. Not from within the system." An amused glance flit over her face as her head cocked. "Why?"

He just gave her a grinned response to the smile that was starting to rise on her dark lips.

"Did Kate make her check in? Are we spying on our own spies?" He noted how easily she'd made it a tag team affair and snorted into the hushed tone she'd used.

"They're not spies, Abs."

Both her hands came up defensively before she pointed at him, her hips slacking back so that she could lean into her computer desk. "If it has three different passports in its bag and quacks like a spy? It's a spy, Gibbs."

"What passports?" He asked into her taunting.

"Wow." A beat of honest surprise seemed to subdue her normal energy for a moment, her lips pursing into a barely controlled smirk before she blew out a whistling sound through them. "You are... you're done. Take you off the spit and serve you up, Gibbs. She's got you fully cooked."

The sharply signed and socially unacceptable gestures he made had her eyes going bright green into unmitigated mischief.

"Not nice." Her eyes had gone farther widened as she'd lifted an accusatory hand in his direction, laughing through it. "Not nice at all. You talk to Kate with those hands?"

"Abby."

She was still grinning wildly as she crossed her arms against herself and sucked her cheek into her teeth, head bouncing back and forth before she shrugged into giving in. "There's a couple guys could probably do it. Ya know, in a roundabout way. Take it outside the network and maybe make it look like - "

"Do you know them?" He made slow steps around the end of the table, letting his voice lull quietly as he pulled a paper from his jacket pocket.

"Know of. Not know personally" Her fingers were stretching and she pouted him a glaring when he lifted the paper up higher than her reach. "One's in LA and one's at Norfolk."

"Get Norfolk on it." Gibbs nodded a smile as he let his hand drop, her fingers snatching the note away from him so that she could study it. "This time stamp."

She unnecessarily dropped the safety glasses back down before doing a silly impression of the back and forth trombone slide he did any time he had to read small print. "Do you realize how many calls come into the system at any given - "

"Abs." He ignored her teasing, letting his head angle nearer hers so that he could lower his tone near her ear. "Isolate calls originating in Europe."

"Got it." Her jaw struck up into waiting for his kiss. "Is this still hypothetical? Or are we really breaking into our own network?"

His lips chastely caught against her cheek as he poked into her side, turning away from her grinning with a hand lifted in dismissal. "Anybody asks and I told you it was case related."

"She's in Europe?"

"Who is?" He stalled backwards steps just before the door, letting it slide open behind him.

Abby grinned as she lifted the paper and waved it around a bit. "This is fun."

His steps were already backing him out of Forensics with a shrugging. "What is?"

* * *

"Kate's gonna put herself directly in his line of sight and find a way to draw his attention." She wasn't sure if all NCIS agents ended up with that dry and perfunctory tone of voice after a few years or if it just reminded her of him because she sure as hell missed hearing it skate up that back of her neck.

However, this was a decidedly more feminine version. Far less erotic too.

"Why Kate?" Cassie's hands were leaned into the back of her chair and the question startled into the back of her head, drawing her into turning her attention slightly from the screen they were all watching.

"Because she's his type." The older woman just shrugged into a wry grinning, her hand lifting toward Todd easily. "Tell me why, Kate."

She lifted a shoulder into how intently the redhead was staring her down while waiting for an answer. Felt like she was back in Catholic school and she was about to get a hell of a smack if she smartass-ed around. "I'm more like the women he's watching."

"Correct." But then Shepard's smile went a little warmer as she nodded, appreciative of the quick and accurate answer. "How so Agent Profiler?"

"He likes women who are delicate but confident. He's watching the brunette. The one in the boots. He's had her on his radar since she walked in. She's petite, put together, clean cut."

"She's implying I can't be delicate." She heard Yates murmur it aside toward where Daniel was seated farther back.

His answer was just as lazily dry, "Your general demeanor implies that, darling."

"It's not sexual though, Kate." Jenny Shepard indulged them both with a quirked glance before leaning closer to the brunette, aiming at the laptop they'd set up in the cramped and nearly bare stripped apartment. "Watch him. He's not looking for sex."

"He's bored." Snyder offered gently from behind them both.

She nodded quick agreement back to him, the smile she was wearing seemed inherently supportive as she nudged them along. "He is."

"Restless. Annoyed. Anyone he's tried to interact with has disappointed him." Kate added into the conversation, her focus leaned back toward the screen. "He's intelligent and he knows it. He finds it a waste of his time to pander to someone who doesn't somehow interest him."

"Which means you need to find a way to interest him." The redhead tipped her head into the way Kate was still studying the screen, voice quieted to make it a one way directive. "A way that has nothing to do with the type of woman you are and everything to do with the type of woman you are."

Cassie was suddenly tightly leaned into her shoulder, aiming toward the screen with a quick hand and a sure nod. "He's speaking English. With the waitress. That was - "

"He is. Hence the accent study. Keep it - "

"Educated and upper class." Kate was already lifting her fingers into her hair, drawing the tie out of it to smooth the length of it down her shoulders.

"Good." Shepard gave her a broad smile while watching, nodding slowly in silent agreement of the younger woman's choice. "Just talk to him. Don't try to aim him in any specific direction. These two are going to pick up whatever they can from the conversation and then trail him when he leaves."

She turned in the chair, stilted by slight surprise when Cassie's fingers went prying against a tangle that was being stubborn along the back of her head. "Danny, I need my bag."

The senior agent beside her tipped her a questioning glance, "I don't want you taking anything that can become - "

"I need to engage him, right?" Kate just shrugged as he handed it over, pulling out a few pencils and the small pad of paper she'd been messing around on during the plane trip. "So, I'll engage him."

"Stay in that shop, Todd." Shepard's voice had drawled back to her efficient agent and the-boss-of-you tone. "I'll meet you there. Clear?"

"Got it."

* * *

Maybe not directly in his sight, maybe just a table or two to his right.

And a clear line of vision toward him.

She smiled into the fact he strafed a glance over her and the skirt she was wearing as she shifted her coffee aside, a pencil already tucked up into the fingers of the opposite hand. It wasn't like she hadn't done this a few times before – picked out a stranger and made them a study - it was just this time she had to make it clear that she was studying him. Let him see her watching him while she sketched. Be more than specific (and marginally obvious) in the lie she was laying out between them.

He was watching her when she looked up, a cheeky little smirk renting space on his lips and in the quixotic tinting of his eyes.

She just shrugged a smile into it and blinked before leaning the pencil to the paper. And she didn't block out the lean structure of his face, didn't loosely sketch out guiding lines. She started right with his eyes, because even she had to admit they were fascinating. Fascinating, but not necessarily the ones she wanted smiling in her direction. What she wanted was a bright blue guarding.

Sooner she got this done with, the sooner she could find them again.

"Do you do this often?" His voice flowed charmingly warmer than she'd expected, the accent obviously not Russian or French. Not anything that would be overtly familiar back home. It was something tighter and cleaner in its annunciation. His diction was exceptional and, if she had to admit it, his voice was nice. But she knew one that was nicer - especially when it turned gently groaning or growling in bemused frustration.

Maybe (for a few minutes) she'd thought it would be fun – and maybe it had been sort of sensually exhilarating. Maybe when he'd been yards and tables away from her. But his fingers wiping the table top just before he'd slacked back into the chair opposite her had made it all too suddenly unsettling. The knotting that had started in her stomach as he'd stood had looped up into her lungs by the time he'd stepped to her side, paused over her shoulder and the drawing, and then sat. He sat so calmly too, like he already knew her, as though they were familiar.

What in the hell had she gotten herself into?

Recovery. Bring it back. Make the moment hers. "Practice _is_ repetitive by nature."

Her answer amused him and his lips had a habit of thinly twitching into any smile that he made out of actual enjoyment. "And why choose me?"

"You didn't think it unfair to watch everyone while no one watched you?"

His smile went deeper in response to her cutting tone, hand waving up from his lap and over the table between them, "You do this for money?"

"I do this for practice." Kate kept the countering quiet, focusing on the drawing and narrowly avoiding the smile he was trying to get her to see.

"And flirtation?" The lift in his tone was obviously meant to make her smile in return. She ignored it.

She finally looked up into his silent waiting and shook her head dryly, "If I were flirting with you, you would know."

"Might I keep it?" The question was surprisingly gentle, very nearly honest it seemed. "I'll pay you."

"I do not need money." She acted as though the offer was offensive to her, the implication that she'd been hustling him ludicrous. "It's unfinished."

"Please?" He said it like a threat, like saying a simple 'please' had meant he'd run out of any other options.

"Let me finish first." Kate acquiesced into a shrug.

"I think maybe you _are_ flirting with me."

"I have no reason to flirt." She made sure to keep any note of pleasure silent from her tone, kept it completely lazed as she lifted the hand with the pencil and aimed his head aside. "Left."

He smiled again as he turned his jaw in the direction she'd aimed, his dark hair trimmed tightly short along the side of his head as he slowly exhaled, "Tell me where you learned this talent."

"From my father." Kate murmured as she kept drawing, using the action to steady herself. "Stop talking."

She assumed, just by the fact that he was so confident in himself and so contrary with the world, that telling him to stop doing something would just lead to him doing double heaps more of it.

She knew another man like that.

Hers (damn, when had she started thinking of Jethro Gibbs as hers to own?), hers was twice as warm and half as creepy, though.

And this guy, despite his charismatic smirking and admittedly pretty face, was straight up creepy.

"Rene." Liar. There was no way in hell the name he pressed into his chest with manicured nails and long fingers was actually his own. They'd known far ahead of time that Rene Saurel was an alias. Because Rene Saurel, the actual one, was long dead. "What is your name?"

"Stop talking." It came off just as sharply as she'd meant but then she softened when his glance thinned on her in cautious scrutiny. "For a moment. Please?"

He silently questioned her a moment before dipping her a nod, his glance dropping toward the drawing and staying there. "Of course."

He couldn't last long.

He seemed to like to hear himself talk too much.

Still, longer than she'd expected while she worked a little shading in. "You are married?"

Kate snorted as she shook her head. "No."

"But you are engaged?" He'd lifted his hand between them and waved in her direction, as though he was implying she elucidate. Nope, no, thank you. Not going there.

"No." She murmured as she gave up on trying to add any more detail, forcing her wrist into a slow arching as she pulled the paper from the pad.

He watched her hand intently as she slid the drawing across the table, "You are in love with him? Or her?"

Yes? No. Definitely? No. Very nearly? Yes. What?

How in the actual hell had he been able to twist that back around on her so deftly? Sneaky little shit. He wasn't nearly as aloof as he pretended to be. He was downright dangerous.

She hooked an annoyed glaring in his direction, holding onto the humor in his eyes. "I should have chosen a less talkative subject."

"Why did you choose me then?" His laughing seemed true at least. Which, actually, soured her stomach a little. Because it seemed too confidently intimate, implied that it was acceptable to taunt and tease and play with her.

It had her guarding wall twice as high as usual.

And the very realization made her think of Gibbs.

 _Be specific when you lie_. "Something in your eyes."

* * *

" _She's sweet. Too sweet for you, babes. Y'never could stomach too much sugar."_

The saccharin swilling mix of lavender and lilacs was far too heady, spiked up in his head and made his gut sour instantly.

Not together. One or the other, one at a time, that was fine. But he couldn't have them in combination.

He couldn't handle the both of them at once. It was too sickly much. Had him too damn near to nauseous.

"Shan... she's not... what?" If he kept his eyes gripped shut then he could focus on the sound of her voice and the almost brush of comfort along his temple.

Stronger touch, though.

It wasn't the way Shannon had usually just wiped her affection on him. Three other women had been near-to-not-even-close replications of that touch.

It was the way Kate seemed to know exactly which muscle needed a pressing in order to release. She wasn't necessarily any closer to Shannon than his exes were, wasn't necessarily any better than Diane or the others.

She was different, though. And not just by the color of her hair.

She looked at him like she understood him more and in some aspects, by comparison, she did.

" _Maybe she's not as sweet as everyone thinks, though. Huh?"_ He knew, so very logically, that he was just about moments away from lucidity. That this being awake and not waking was usually when he could hear her from so fucking far away. _"Maybe that's why you like her so much? She's not what everyone assumes she is?"_

"I'm sorry." He was almost awake enough to actually say it into the sweated bedroom, let the heat in his voice match the overly floral mingling of a wetted greenhouse smell.

It was possibly, probably, (damn absolutely) the first time they'd both been together in this space and away from him all at once.

" _Sorry for what? For liking her? Hell, Gibbs. I like her."_

And that was when he realized he really was mostly awake.

The words were scratchy from a rasped throat as he kept his eyes shut. "You shouldn't."

" _You should."_ She'd always been so implicitly sure of the decisions she'd made, even when they were that near to silent. _"She's good. And we just don't waste good around here, do we?"_

"No." He blinked a suddenly wide awake stare toward the ceiling, sweat sticking him flat to damped down bed sheets that didn't smell like either of them anymore. "I don't."

* * *

The sigh was dramatic, loud, and obviously meant to garner his attention. "I really wish Kate would just come home already."

Oh, how quickly she'd gone from his own overly protective guard dog to full on traitorous female. And since when was his office and the desk she had her short-skirted butt rested on Kate Todd's home? The only thing in the space that belonged to the former Secret Service agent was the necklace that had been staring him in the face for about two weeks too long past the week before them.

"She'd just tell you that I was a bastard before she came around." He muttered as he tried to continue reading his email, flatly refusing to reach for the glasses that were sitting beside her.

"Yeah, but you didn't flaunt it as much when she was home." Abby cast lazily over her shoulder, her body sighing out hard and loudly again after the accusation.

"Home?" He snorted derision into her back and pretended not to notice how sharply her shoulders lifted at the emotion in his voice. "This is home?"

"Might as well be." She finally whipped around on him, shifting so that she was half leaned on the edge of his desk and her glare was pointed downward. "When was the last time you slept in your bed instead of your chair?"

He felt the flinch in his jaw and heard the words come off his lips before he could choke down on them, "When's the last time my bed was anybody's damn business?"

She suddenly gave him that slow-your-roll-and-rest-your-bones squinting, the tipped little glaring that said the girl from the Quarter just wasn't gonna mess around with his brand of self flagellant bullshit. And he figured he had about forty seconds to fix it before that very specific glare went straight to ached eyes and an obvious hurt. Abby was all guts, all the time – but she was still Abby. And he just didn't yell at her, he just... damn it. Fifteen seconds, maybe.

"Abs." His eyes slung closed, voice verging apologetic. "It's not what you think."

"Stop taking it out on everyone else." She snapped over him with a tone that was quieter but sturdier than he'd expected.

"I'm not acting any differently than I normally do." Gibbs coughed a wry laugh through the words, shaking his head as he slung his shoulders back in the chair and put space between them. "It's just that now all of you have an excuse for it. A cute little reason to blame me being me on."

"Even if that's probably marginally true," she nodded the words out before lifting an aiming finger in his direction, "stop it."

"I'm not - "

"Stop yelling at Tony, stop avoiding Ducky," she was steaming right on ahead of him and he forced a patient exhale through his nose, bemusedly watching how authoritative and sharp she was being in showing her concern, "and don't take that tone with me."

He just shrugged at her, tried not to smile. "What tone?"

Tactical failure. Half a smile.

Especially when she just squinted thinner and her dark lips pouted annoyance at him. "Now you're gonna be a smarty pants?"

The smile went wider as he let his head angle cocked against the back of his chair, "Smarty pants?"

"We do like having someone to blame." Her shoulders lifted in a not-at-all innocent little motion as she considered it. "But that's not all of it."

No, it wasn't.

He wasn't gonna admit to it in the middle of the squad room, though.

"You miss her."

He didn't lie to Abby, as a general rule.

He also didn't correct her when she was so spot on.

He squinted back at her, nodding tightly into her concern. "I'll be nicer."

"Doubtful."

* * *

Abby was, as was usually the case, absolutely correct. The girl just didn't make assumptions – and good on her. She found evidence to support theories and then studied that evidence and let it evolve her theory until she came to her best of all possible and most empirical of answers. Usually he appreciated that, usually he took it for granted. Usually it was exactly what he needed of her – a concrete result. Question answered.

He wasn't so sure he'd needed her to apply that clinical thinking to this particular situation.

Because he _did_ actually miss her. Jesus Christ, he actually did.

And having Abby say it out loud made it seem so much bigger than it had been when it was just an unformed ebbing in his gut (that he could do his absolute best to ignore, ignore, ignore).

Tracking her calls had led to mapping in his mind where she'd been, mentally making pin pricks in the atlas he kept filed in his brain. And, if he were to be completely honest, he'd knee-jerked smiled when he realized that Abby was physically doing the same thing to a colorful and small map she'd tacked up behind her desk, Eastern Europe in grade school colors with push pins and red ribbon and, Jesus, her map looked a lot more innocently fun than the one in his head did. Because hers looked like a children's Pen Pal project – and his looked like a war zone. The little red line that had started just outside of Moscow had tautly wrapped its way south and stayed too long near Grozny (of course, of course too long near Grozny – hadn't he known it'd twist that far down and linger there?).

After every check in the both of them had harassed that poor kid from Norfolk into stuttering where the call had originated and made the mark, her on her map, him in thoughts. Just south of Moscow. Then Kiev to Rostov. On to Grozny. Then, thankfully, moving back west, back closer to him. Ankara, Sofia. He'd started placing internal bets on the next landing and had been more than pleasantly wrong when she'd called in from Crete and not Sarajevo.

But there'd been about three days in the middle of a murder investigation wherein he just hadn't inhaled/exhaled all that much. And in the middle of those three days, somewhere in the mid-night of one of them, he'd realized that she really was gone. That she wasn't just busy upstairs or tucked tightly and warmly into Ducky's den of teacups and surgical tools. She wasn't in Forensics, arguing over where to have dinner with Abby. She wasn't sticking her tongue out at DiNozzo in response to something sophomoric as she took the stairs and headed for her own office.

And his bathroom didn't smell like her anymore.

And his boat seemed to be mocking him with its stillness.

And he'd realized, while sketching out the framing for some shelving, that she'd stolen his eraser.

Even he'd been surprised at how childishly angry he'd gotten with her for that.

So he'd petulantly put her shoes away – exactly where he'd told her to put them in the first damn place.

* * *

Being annoyed with her absence had been the best possible recourse – because it allowed him to churn and burn up on something while working a case. Put the bit in his mouth and tugged. And the case itself gave him an excellent distraction to her complete unavailability. The case, the job, the responsibility. Those things he'd subtly and silently reminded himself were supposed to be a hell of a lot more important than knowing where she was? Right. He'd brought his focus back.

At least he thought it had... until he'd gotten back from Autopsy to find an unopened liquor bottle on his desk. He'd set a fingertip to the cap and tipped the bottle enough to look it over, head lifting sharply as he studied the bullpen in surprised confusion. And Tony had leaned a little too close for comfort, a laugh rattling off him as he'd searched over the foreign writing on the dark label.

"Well look at that, Boss." DiNozzo's smile had been evident in his voice, bounced warmly over his shoulder, "From Russia, with love."

"Where is she?"

Surprise shocked up in the younger man's eyes, his head drawn back and straight as Gibbs rounded on him. "I have no idea."

Gibbs grifted an impatient glare over the other agent, voice slinging derogatory. "You were here."

"I was interviewing Caslin." Tony corrected quickly, his face slacked passive and his body stayed still. "It was here when I got back."

The older man's face softened a little as they held a momentary stare down, his jaw flexing once before he nodded, "You get anything off him?"

"Caslin?" DiNozzo shrugged off, his shoulders going loose as his palm waved up between them. "No. He's clueless. About two nuggets short of a chicken dinner, ya know? That is from her, isn't it?"

"I don't know." Gibbs snapped off before turning a half glaring into his subordinate's watching. "Is it?"

"McGee said - "

"McGee said what?" He interrupted, turning the lean of his body up into the other man's space.

"She's been in Russia." Tony murmured as he tried out a smile, shrugging loosely. "And other places. And I'm gonna go release Caslin now."

That full shoulder span of the older man's leaning took up DiNozzo's field of vision. "You probably should."

"Ya know, Daniela Bianchi was dubbed in 'From Russia with Love'." Tony's grin went young and wide, his eyes lighting up as the older man just finally sighed into his rambling. "Her accent was - "

"DiNozzo." He patted a patiently humored nodding onto the younger man's jaw, fingers thwapping a little heavier than light. "Caslin."

"Got it."

* * *

He'd unconsciously watched her all the way across the office, covertly as possible, aiming for surreptitious as she'd passed DiNozzo's desk and aimed straight for the one across from him.

"Hello." Her voice was light and quick, just as warm as the smile she downed over him as she skirted around Gibbs' desk and leaned her weight into the back of the chair.

"Hi." Tim tried not to watch the slight lift of her left foot and the pretty strapped heel she was wearing as she stretched over the chair, weight tightly balanced as she reached against the back wall. "Can I help you?"

He'd tried not to look at her legs. He didn't usually have trouble respecting a women's privacy or space. Didn't usually go leering after strangers. But she was so obviously happy that it radiated attractively off her as she tugged something shiny off the wall and turned back toward him, her body rested forward into the back of the chair. And that was when she'd busted him anyhow, smirking amusement as he'd shyly blinked his eyes up to her face and purposefully kept them there.

"Probably not." She hummed the words back at him as she shook dark hair off her shoulders and linked the chain she'd lifted around her neck, near daring him to look anywhere else as she worked the clasp.

"Are you..." Tim shook his glance out over the squad room as he stood, avoiding the way she just kept smiling at him as she sloped her hair back over her shoulders. "I think... are you looking for Agent Gibbs?"

A full wattage smile caught his attention back to the way she was watching him as she curved around the desk, letting her body slack into the front of it as her hands caught the edge. "Pretty sure by now it's the other way around, actually."

"Excuse me?"

A laugh came off her as she shook her head and waved toward him, "What's your name?"

"Can I see your Visitor's Pass?" McGee tried to ignore how casually she'd leaned off one desk and toward the other, her jaw lifting into his question.

"My Visitor's Pass?" The tipped repetition seemed even more amused. "No, you can't."

"Ma'am - "

"Did you just call me 'ma'am'?" The laugh that tipped off her was actually more than just pretty, it was sort of enthralling in how breathily warm it was. "Really?"

"I think - " He stuttered up still as she slacked the right side of her jacket back, the badge clipped on her skirt hem as she angled him a bright tease of a wink. "Oh."

"I work upstairs." Her explanation was full of a laughing tone, but gentled, something that was sweet and kind instead of teasing. Well, at first. Because then she leaned into the front of the desk he'd been using and aimed a finger in his direction. "Would you like to frisk and fingerprint me now, Officer Krupke?"

He'd opened his mouth to answer and nearly instantly shut it back up, swallowing into the blue eyes that were so suddenly trained on him from behind her. "He'd damn well better not."

There was something so unashamedly pleased in the way she just smiled in response to the gruffness of Gibbs' voice at her back, not turning her head even as the other agent pressed full up the back of her, his eyes still focused on McGee. "And I'm punting his ass back to Norfolk if he keeps thinking about it."

Her head tipped slightly back, a giddy shrug of her body matching the smile she was still aiming toward McGee. "He found me."

McGee swallowed hard, distracted down by the way her hand hand just lifted back into the button of the older man's polo and tugged. "Gibbs, I didn't - "

"He caught me rifling through your drawers." Her head turned sharply up into the older agent's leaning, that pretty smile going softened as her voice dropped thready and quiet. "Threatened to handcuff me."

"I didn't." Tim argued sharply, snapping her a frown before meeting back to the brow arched glaring Gibbs was giving him from over her slim shoulder.

"She's jerking you around, McGee." Tony's rushed voice caught up on his side, the other man dumping his bag roughly onto the top of his desk before waving toward her. "All those little calls you've been tracking? Compliments of Agent Todd."

"I didn't know."

"Tracking, huh?" Her voice picked up even more heat and he couldn't help but turn a watching back over the two of them, regardless of how awkward it felt. "Did you miss me?"

Gibbs just gave her a thinned glance, the angle of his head over hers making her curl back in a way that had McGee intentionally dropping his eyes to the desk. "Yup."

"Did you really? How so?"

He chuckled and McGee just blinked up utter surprise into how softly he spoke over her, "Poorly. Complaints were lodged."

"I started a file, actually." Tony added brightly and waved her a few lazy fingers, his body still behind his own desk as they both watched Gibbs catch against her hand and pull her tightly along. "But you can peruse it later, I guess. After your debriefing."

McGee watched her roll the other agent a glaring before turning into the way Gibbs was still strongly leading her out from between the desks and toward the elevator. He was still admittedly flustered by the entire interaction, right from how easily comfortable she'd seemed in her movements as she'd stepped into Gibbs' space right to the point where he'd noted how intimately curling the older man's fingers had been along her wrist. Tim tipped his head into watching how excitedly she looped up the other agent's side and said something indecipherable, something that had the other man shaking his head with a level of amusement that McGee hadn't entirely thought possible.

Agent Gibbs was a stone wall of a monument to the entire institution. He'd heard things, so many things, when he'd gotten called in from Norfolk. His colleagues had joked that he'd be lucky to survive the trip, offered to clear his apartment of anything worth money. They'd been putting dibs on his home theatre system.

And she... just didn't seem to fit anywhere into the hardcore, impatient, ruthless Marine persona.

He watched her laugh as she teased her fingers into the other man's jacket, Gibbs' entire body swayed as he jammed at the elevator call button. "Okay... who is that?"

"That's Kate." Tony responded quickly, his voice comfortably lazy as he let his body drop into his chair, swinging it so that he could kick both feet up onto his desk. "Free advice?"

McGee pinned him a distrusting glance after watching them wait for the elevator. "What?"

"Never look at her like that again." DiNozzo was tipping his head back into his chair, a sleepy groaning coming off him as he wiggled a little deeper into the seat to get comfortable.

His glance lifted to follow the way Gibbs was leaned over her uplifted jaw and an obvious hush of teasing as she spoke. "Like what?"

"Like that. Exactly that." The other man pointed at him sharply even though his head was still tipped back and his eyes were shut. "Never again."

* * *

If his broad hands caging her face perfectly still and up cautiously close to his was what coming home was meant to feel like, then she had absolutely no regrets in taking one job over the other. Because she felt suddenly safe and appreciated and wanted as he searched the bright blue of his eyes over her face and then down the front of her and then quickly back up to meet her smirking glance.

"I'm fine." Kate plucked her fingers up into his shirt, nodding in the stillness of the elevator. "Don't look at me like that."

He'd grunted a quick decision making shortly after the doors had closed, slapping the emergency stop before rounding on her so strongly that she'd lifted her jaw into the movement and just waited it out, her eyes blinking rapidly into the quickness of his lifted hands. She had the idea it was something he did often enough, but not something they should probably make a big habit out of – having half the agency know that they were... well, it wasn't like they needed to flaunt it.

Still, it was another safety wrapped up around her that made the near month of being away and not knowing what to expect upon coming home more comfortable.

"I'm just lookin' at you, krasavitsa." He said it so softly, his voice hashing deep and low in the darkened space. "Haven't had the chance lately."

"I haven't changed." She tipped her head farther forward in his hands, glance dipping over his mouth before she met his eyes again. "You look tired."

A tsk-ing noise came off him as he shrugged. "I don't sleep much."

He took up the little space she had for countering the comment, dropping his mouth against hers roughly. He kissed her hard, kept her head claimed still and unmoving as he drove his tongue between her lips and groaned into slicking it against hers. Kate jerked into the front of his shirt, tugging them closer together (if 'closer' was really a possibility considering he'd already managed to wedge his thigh between hers). Her hands spread into slowing him, wiping on his chest and along his throat as he slid his fingers into her hair and cradled her head angled under his. The slow lashing and nipping of his tongue and teeth along her bottom lip was a compromise between his rushing and her surprise.

"Ya skuchal," he breathed out on her lips as he loosened and wiped her hair back, letting her head lax aside as his mouth wiped her jaw and his teeth went nipping along her earlobe, "moyá dorogáya."

He smiled at the moaning way her body slanted the full press of her weight into his chest, chuckling into the scrape of her nails against the back of his neck before reaffirming it. "I did."

"Missed you." She agreed on a nodding, turning her head into the way he was captively watching her reaction to each breathing movement.

She hadn't been completely sure what she'd be coming back to when she did finally get back.

And while she'd tried her best not to wonder, it'd niggled at the base of her brain more often than she would have liked.

The immeasurable safety of him curled around her was beyond what she'd hoped for.

"I still have a couple hours of -"

"I need to meet with Morrow for awhile anyhow." She tested a kiss against the corner of his mouth, feeling his smile under the press of it. "Later?"

"Not too much later." It was a direct order, despite the fact that he wasn't directly her boss.

She widened him a surprised glance as her head angled farther back, "This from the self pronounced workaholic?"

"My place. I wanna show you something." he lifted his fingers into tracing on her cheek, smirking into how it made her eyes thin a little in pleasure.

Kate smiled reflexively into how softly his touch traced down her cheek, "I've seen your boat, Gunny."

A growled noise dropped down the side of her neck just before his lips took a tour of her throat, "It's not the boat, smartass."

* * *

His house was a lot louder when she was stateside, that was for sure. Not that it was really a point of complaint. It was just so starkly different from the days before that he stalled up and listened to the change, let his shoulders slant back loosely. A smirk tugged at one corner of his mouth and he let it widen as he caught music coming from a few rooms away. And she obviously couldn't help herself from humming along with it. Which was, at the very least, sort of domestically and femininely adorable. He relaxed the ache from his spine as he smiled completely, pitching his body angled to the closed front door as his hands went lax and flat against it.

She had to have brought down the stereo from wherever he'd shoved it upstairs because the humming music sounded off from forward of him, deeper in the first floor of the house. Or possibly brought her own when she'd gone to her apartment. When she'd stepped out to make a stop at home he'd felt marginally guilty, told her that he could meet her there. The bemused tipping of her smile as she'd pulled on her jacket had just preceded the negative shake of her head before she'd tipped him a small wave and headed for the elevator.

And, hell, her heels on his kitchen flooring... the sharp sound was rhythmically measuring his breathing and making it even as he let his head drop back into the door with a calmed thud.

He didn't moon over attractive women in heels. That was what DiNozzo was for...

But it wasn't... God, it wasn't the heels. It wasn't just the sound of a welcome woman in his house.

It was the sound of her being thousands of miles closer than she had been in a month.

Homecoming had a soundtrack, it seemed. And it smelled pretty damn delicious too.

* * *

Jesus, white looked good on her.

Especially so tightly woven and as soft as the fitted sweater she was wearing was.

Especially when she'd let the dark of her hair go loose down her shoulders.

"What are you making that smells so good?" He recognized, as he curled his fingers into the hem of her pants. that she had to have realized he was there. Her petite frame had instantly relaxed back into the front of his chest. The heels he'd heard evidence of brought her up high enough to turn her face into his jaw and the simple but unequivocally intimate movement of it caged him up still.

"The real question," her lips were wiping the question on his jaw like it wasn't really all that important to either of them, at least not as important as the movement of her mouth closer, "is how can you cook on this stove? It's tiny."

The haughty little tone matched the way she intentionally snuggled her ass directly into his crotch.

 _Really, Kate? You wanna go there? I will win._

And her lips laying on his jaw -

 _Aw, fuck. Or not._

"I use the fireplace." He had to stop letting her hear that incriminating sound off his lungs, because every time he felt it loosen off himself she left a warm and breathy laugh somewhere on his skin. "Open flame."

Screw it, if she was gonna be all coquettish, he'd just remind her how much she'd liked his hands before she left.  
"Good God, Gibbs." He grinned into how much of a moaning tinted what was supposed to be annoyance as he sent the full flats of his palms up the front of her and just dropped his mouth into the curve of her neck. "You're a grown man, not a Boy Scout."

He was enjoying the plush softness of the sweater, just before enjoying curving his hands against her breasts as his nose nudged up behind her ear. "On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty - "

"I swear, if you don't kiss me - "

"What?" He chuckled into the heat of her hair, drawing down on the smell of her, letting it rest low in his lungs. "What will you do, Agent Todd?"

"I should've stayed home so I could eat curry and ice cream without you annoying me."

 _Oh, bullshit sweetheart. That was never an option. This is my time._

She accepted the way he suddenly jerked her turning into him, let his hands swing her around so tightly close that she'd had to lift her hands from the shifting movement. And he'd taken up the empty space on the front of her before she could lower them again, his mouth lowered to hers quick enough that a choked sound pressed along his tongue as he swept it against her teeth. Her fingers clasped up against his face and he felt her slow him, felt the wipe of her fingertips intentionally gentle him and his movements as she met his tongue with her own and laid out a moaning into his mouth that went lazily pleased. He forced his mouth from hers, driving his forehead forward to drive her back a little as she wiped touching on either side of his jaw.

"What did you wanna show me?" She was smiling with her eyes shut, that same pleased and dreamy little look that he'd watched her make on a sidewalk more than a month before. Coulda been cocky or smug – but it was inherently just delighted instead.

He drove his head forward to catch her attention, "Besides how much I missed you?"

"Gibbs."

"It can wait." His lips caught hers up again, softer but still sharply quick. "Mnye tebya nye khvatal."

She blinked slowly back to him, eyes thin but brighter than he'd expected when she squinted questioning at his words. "Hmmm?"

"There wasn't enough of you for me." He translated it into a shy quietness, catching sight of the way the words had her attention turning brightly up, her jaw angling toward his as she searched over his face. "Not here. Not while you were gone."

The wide roundness of her eyes seemed to haze the bourbon color of them brighter, made him dry throated and thirsty for more. "You missed me."

 _Like an arsonist, aching for a spark._

"I keep telling you that." Gibbs admitted into a shied ducking of his head, shoulders rising in a shrug that went almost embarrassed in the face of her surprise.

"Yes, you do." She agreed slowly, quietly as she shifted her hips forward into his and sighed her face down into his chest. She was intentionally angling into his erection, laying up into the groaning that came off him in response. "In various ways."

"Stove." He murmured it into her hair, hands already rising to catch against her arms, thumbs rubbing the cashmere softness of her sweater against her skin.

"What?"

He laughed into the grumbled confusion she lifted into his jaw, dropping a hand so that he could flick the burner off just past the angling of her hip. "Turn the stove off, sweetheart."

The flush of her entire body up into his was more than a just a hint or a sort of submission, especially when she whimpered her mouth against his jaw to counter his shifting. "Stay here."

"I'm not leaving this house for the next twelve hours, Katie." His palms came up her sides, driving against the fabric of her shirt before catching under her arms and lifting them up loosely along his shoulders. "And neither are you."

She was so pliantly agreeable to it. Like he'd made a movement she'd wanted to make and hadn't been sure of in shifting.

"I wasn't sure you'd still... I didn't know what coming back was gonna look like." The way she tentatively linked her hands up behind his head had his shoulders flexing, the pressure she was putting against them heavier but somehow more comfortable. "I mean, with you. I mean... I didn't expect anything from you or - "

"Kate."

"I'm rambling." She bit into her bottom lip. And he instantly lost half his attention span.

"A bit."

The blush on her was just as amusingly adorable as it had been before. God, she was too sweet for him to touch sometimes. "I just... I thought about you a lot."

His head just lifted a little in amusement, his smile settling in even deeper as he studied her face.

"I mean..." Her words stuttered still when she blinked into the widened grin he was leaning over her, his eyes burning butane blue. "God, you're an ass."

"You done?" The grin slanted a little wider and another shrug lifted his shoulders.

Kate let both palms shove into his chest, forcing him to slack back a little before he dug her closer, slanting the petite stretch of her up along the front of him as her chin landed on his shoulder. "Making myself look like an idiot? Sure."

"Y'look fine to me." Gibbs completely usurped the self deprecation in her tone with a hummed approval along the front of her ear. "More than."

"More than fine?" She was nearly laughing, letting him nip against her earlobe as he started steps backwards, dragging the length of her along with him.

"Quite a bit more, yeah."

* * *

He'd decided, probably about ten days after she'd left, that the punishment for taking a job that took her away would be extracted just as slowly as each day of her absence had felt for him.

Not that he'd tell her that. Not out loud anyhow. No way in hell she actually needed to know how often he'd actually thought about her.

But slowly and incrementally making her come once for each week of her vacancy?

Yeah, that sounded just about right.

And the second time she incoherently moaned her lips along his still clothed shoulder and jerked at his hair with a force that seemed a little more violent that he'd expected... well, that was when he got pretty damn proud of how well that particular punishment was playing out. The moan she let into the air above them seemed like it belonged just in that space and he trapped the smirk on his lips, letting it rub between her breasts as she apologetically soothed her fingers against his abused scalp.

"See what happens when you stay away so long?"

She was still rushed up ragged, breathing hard even as her fingertips rubbed a subtle little circle around and around on the back of his neck. "Gibbs."

He realized then that just the sated exhalation of his name was something about her that he could savor, lifting his head to study the flush that rose from her breasts all the way up her throat and pinked high on her cheeks. She was scraping her teeth against her bottom lip, one hand catching back sweated dark hair from her forehead. She'd kept her eyes closed, a half smile laying lazy along her lips as she rubbed her head deeper into his pillow, no doubt wiping the smell of her shampoo back into his bed clothes.

Just as well. He'd sorta missed it.

"And that was just week two." He murmured his mouth back down, licking a line along her throat, taking up the taste of perfume tanged sweat. Sweet but biting, the taste of her. He'd been craving that for weeks.

 _Jesus, you're screwed. You are beaucoup screwed, Gunny._

"You're not funny." Her hand slapped into his shoulder before jerking against the fabric of his shirt, keeping him tugged close down over her chest even as her lungs drew in hard.

"I'm not being funny, Caitlin." A little growling to his tone and he knew she'd arch before it curved up her spine. "You deserve everything you're getting."

"I want you." _Woman, you kill me._ "I want - "

"And I wanted you close. I wanted you where I could protect you." He interrupted roughly, raking the words down her still flushed throat while he wiped against her stomach and pressed her purposefully flat to the mattress. "We don't always get what we want, Katie."

The sighed sound she made in answer was gentling along with the feathered run of her fingers up behind his ear, "What did you want to show me?"

"I made you a shoe rack." It was easier to admit if he wiped it along the curve of her left breast, because then he could hear her moan and still avoid the softness of her eyes. "In the closet."

"Really?"

He chuckled into the curve of her shifting shoulder, pinning her flat with pressing fingers and a kissing that rode the stretch of her collarbone. "You can look later."

"Why?" She asked it so softly.

"Because I almost killed myself on a pair of heels in the middle of the night." He finally lifted his head into the duality of emotions in her glance, the frayed excitement. "I told you to put them in the closet."

She started shifting beneath him and he pressed weight into the movement, locking her still as he met the near guarded concern of her eyes, "I didn't think you really meant it."

He caught her hands up fast, caught the flicked look of questioning she gave him as he angled one hand against her torso before laying the other over it. "I generally say things I don't mean?"

At first she just blinked mild annoyance into the cocked tone of voice.

"I mean - "

"Week three." He slanted her hands crossed onto her ribs as a deflection, locking them between a pressing palm just below her breasts while the other hand dropped to rake on her thigh. "You're not getting out of this. Keep your hands to yourself, Agent Todd."

She seemed extraordinarily pleased by his assertion, even as she quietly tried lifting against his palm and he flinched his fingers tighter clasped against her wrists. "What in God's name are you going to do if I end up on a six month tour?"

"You worried about my stamina or yours?" The words went along her stomach and he half smirked into how the muscles instantly tightened and went taut beneath the heat of his breath.

"Both."

"I know how to pace myself." He perfunctorily let the response graze her pelvis before he swiped his tongue along skin, following the damp line back down with a rub of his lips. "Don't you worry."

"That's exactly what worries me."

He liked that she'd laughed it into the otherwise still air of his bedroom.

Because it made it feel like the space was breathing around them.

He shrugged her up an impish grin, palm slanting her thigh aside as he snugged lower against her, fingertips rising back up already sensitive skin. "I'll be gentle."

"You lying bastard."


End file.
